


Querido

by Clockwork



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Everyone lives, M/M, Modern AU, Reincarnation, Soulmates, alternative universe, soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 09:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16783858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clockwork/pseuds/Clockwork
Summary: A sequel toBeyond That, a modern au set Faraday/Vasquez piece wherein they realize that meeting now was maybe fated.





	Querido

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AndreaLyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/gifts).



_Somewhere between fear and adrenaline pain stopped being an issue. Remotely, somewhere in the back of his brain, Joshua felt each bullet hit, striking his flesh with a thud he heard more than felt, reacting to the blow but not feeling the sharp burn of pain that should have shot through his arms and legs. The only he could feel was the bullet in his side, the first shot that had made him realize that he had no choice but to mount Jack and ride._

_The dig of hooves into turf beneath him spurred him on, gaze focused on nothing but the bright metal gleam of the gatling gun before him. Behind him the cries of the others had faded, the repeat of the weapon nothing above the pounding of his own heart in his ears. All of it was gone, faded and forgotten. All that remained was the target before him._

_Then the world was missing beneath him, falling until the ground met with his body, jarring loose blood and flesh and bone but not stopping him even as he prayed that Jack was okay, hoping he’d gotten away before this happened._

_Laughter and pain then, flooding his system. Then there was nothing but peace. Peace, and the taste of tobacco, and smoke in his lungs, and then it was all gone. All of it. Nothing left in that moment of peace and knowledge that they were safe._

Joshua came to with a sudden gasp, thrashing against the covers that held him. There was no peace. No, he wasn’t accepting this, wasn’t embracing his death even as he knows there’s no choice. There’s nothing left of him to fight.

“Whoa. Whoa. Guerito, breathe. Calm down and breathe,” Alejandro murmured, reaching out for the man beside him, trying to reassure him that it was nothing but a dream.

Collapsing back against the bed, Joshua tried desperately to make sense of what he was feeling. Heart racing, head pounding though that might well have been the bottle of whiskey they had chased with a bottle of tequila, and his mouth was dry. Yet none of that was truly bothering him. 

When his eyes closed he saw Alejandro’s face as he stood in the sunlight, cheering him on. He saw the ground rushing towards him as his horse stumbled. He felt the burn for the briefest of moments as the dynamite he’d lit from the cigarette in his mouth tore through bone and flesh.

Opening his eyes suddenly, unable to keep seeing that image as he reached out, almost blindly, to take Vasquez’s hand, clinging to it in the dark. 

He could still smell smoke as if he’d just lit up, as if the cigarette was still clenched between his teeth. 

It was still dark despite the light that had blinded him in the dream, the sun not beginning to light up the sky outside of his apartment. Staring up at the ceiling, he felt Vasquez shift, resting his weight against Joshua’s side, moving to slide their joined hands against his chest as he rested his head on his shoulder. 

“I need a drink.”

Vasquez chuckled, kissing the edge of his collarbone. “The last thing you need is a drink if you’re going to have nightmares like that. Talk to me about it.”

Joshua snorted, running his hand over his face as the cobwebs of the dream started to fade. “It was the end of the Wizard of Oz,” he muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“You were there, and you were there,” he mocked in a high pitched voice. “You and Goodnight and Billy. Sam too, and Emma. “

“So you had a nightmare that scared you that bad about the night we met? I’m insulted, Guero.”

“Shut up,” he muttered, though his tones were fond as he gave his hand a squeeze. “It wasn’t even like that. No poker game or anything. Hell, it was like we were in the Old West.”

Alejandro moved then, propping himself up on his elbow so he could look down at Joshua in the dark. “What were we doing?”

“Fighting. Not one another,” he said, moving his hand up to brush against a bare shoulder, along the line of his spine, just needing that contact right now more than ever. “We were taking on the army or something, and they were winning and everyone around us was dying, and I just… I couldn’t let the kids die,” he said, shaking his head. 

“Your niece and nephew?” 

“Them. Others. A lot of kids.”

“What did you do,” Alejandro murmured, leaning down to brush light kisses against Joshua’s cheekbone, against the curve of his jaw. 

“I did the only thing I could think of,” he admitted, feeling his heart to pound once more as he talked about it. “I grabbed my horse and I rode. I rode for the gun they had. Shit, I don’t even know if they had guns like this back then. It was huge,” he said, eyes closing again, briefly, clenching tight before he had to force them open again. 

The hand on hand on Vasquez’s back moved up, cupping the back of his head and drawing him in for a kiss. Needing that connection, that moment of finding himself hyperfocused on here and now and not lost in the past a nightmare had drawn him into. Needing to know that this was real and whole, and even if it’s only been a few weeks since they met at a poker game that Alejandro was there with him, just as real and perfect as he had been since that first night they shared. 

The kiss broke but they stayed together, brows nearly touching in that moment. It took Joshua a moment to realize though that while he was moving away from the nightmare and into this moment, Vasquez seemed tense suddenly, almost feeling as if he was trembling as he leaned in closer to rest his brow to Joshua’s. His hand moved up, cupping Faraday’s cheek, finger brushing over his cheekbone, just beneath his eye. 

“It was a Gatling gun, wasn’t it? On a trailer drawn by horses. Huge and metallic and it could shoot rounds through buildings.”

Joshua barely nodded, not thinking anything of it. Obviously it was something historical that Vasquez knew about. He knew about a lot, and had hinted of a time when he wasn’t so above the law, so maybe that was part of it. That was actually part of what kept the spark in those first days, even dealing with the children. There was a lot mysterious about Alejandro Vasquez, and Joshua wanted to know it all. 

Now though it had become something else. Warmer and sweeter, just finding that they enjoyed one another’s company. So much so that he’d invited Alejandro to come along to a tournament in Dubai he was in at the end of the month. A week long trip, together. Much as he tried not to let it show too much, Joshua was really looking forward to it.

“You rode out to it though, even though they were firing on you. Goodnight and Billy, they were in a church tower, and they tried to pick them off so that you could make it,” Alejandro continued, moving to push himself back and sitting up, staring down at Joshua. “You kept taking bullets though, but still you didn’t stop. Not until your horse fell and you went down with him, but even then, you didn’t stop.”

It was like ice slowly pressed out from Faraday’s spine, tracing tracing through his bone and veins until his entire body felt cold, icy, frigid though he knew that wasn’t why he trembled as he shifted, sitting up as he pressed himself back against the headboard. Almost as if putting distance between them even as he reached for Alejandro’s hand. Their fingers met, twining, clinging as he went on.

“You… they lit your cigarette for you, but you had a stick of dynamite and you lit it. I couldn’t see from where I was but I knew. I saw it as you… as you stopped the gun,” he managed, voice cracking, barely speaking above a whisper. 

Joshua gaped at him, swallowing hard to try and find his voice. “How... ?”

“That first night after the amusement park. I had a dream where I was in a town in the middle of nowhere. There were children in the basement of one building, and men coming to kill us, and like you said… It was all of us from that game,” he said, speaking slowly, testing the words before he spoke. “I don’t think I remembered it until now. Until you started talking about it, but then I remembered it all. I only know what night it was because I woke up that night hurting.”

Even as he admitted that, Vasquez put his hand over his chest, rubbing the spot just over his heart. 

“It was why I called you so soon. I told myself I should wait, be coy and not seem desperate to see you again but after that dream I didn’t want to play those games. I just wanted to see you again.”

They had met the next night for dinner and then spent another night together. They saw each other more days than not since then, any time that Faraday was in town, and even then he’d made stops back through San Antonio when he didn’t need to, wouldn’t have before, just so they could see one another. Not even just for sex, and that had been the part that made him nervous at first. Lunch, a drink at the airport, just whatever they could between flights. 

Now they were facing one another in the dark, confused and uncertain. Only knowing one another for six weeks and yet having to face a connection that neither of them have wanted to confess to. Even before learning they had shared a nightmare of a time and place that was impossible, and painful, and so real in that moment that Joshua still thought he could smell smoke. 

“I need a cigarette,” he finally said, wincing and realizing it was the wrong thing. The truth, but not right in that moment. “Come here.”

He doesn’t wait for Alejandro to answer, pulling him close and curling his arms around him. Waiting for him to untense, to relax into the hold as Joshua leaned down, kissing the top of his head. 

“You were an idiot, Guero. You rode off to die,” he growled, as if it had actually happened, was something he’d done here and now between them. 

And Joshua winced all the same, arms tightening around Vasquez. 

“I rode off to save the kids. To save the others. So I could save you,” he said, realizing then that whatever the dream had been, whatever this other man who was him had been doing or why, that is why Joshua would have done it. He’d have done it to save Alejandro. “And I did. I saved you.”

And knowing then, in that moment, why the man in the dream had felt so much peace. It wasn’t in accepting death and all that came with it but it was the peace of saving the man he loved.

“Promise me you won’t do it again.”

There should have been a moment then where they acknowledge that it hadn’t been real, that promises were being requested based on a dream. Yet Joshua couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. Whatever it had been, it was between them, a connection unlike any other he’d ever known before. He’d felt it that morning when he’d seen Vasquez playing with his niece and nephew, and he felt it now. 

“I promise. I won’t blow myself up again. Ow! Hey!” Laughing as Vasquez poked him hard in the ribs for putting it that way. “I promise, okay?”

His fingers cupped under Vasquez’s chin, lifting his head so that Joshua could kiss him gently. “I promise.”

The man there in the field may have found peace in doing what he had to, but the very thought of leaving Alejandro for anything right now left him feeling sick. 

“I really do need a cigarette though.”

He rolled his eyes, snuggling in closer rather than letting go. “It’s a good thing I like you, querido,” he sighed, murmuring the endearment softly as he held tight rather than letting go. Even for a smoke.


End file.
